My mom’s birthday was Tuesday, so the fam celebrated by having dinner out at True Food Kitchen in Mosaic. Since dinner wasn’t until 7:30, which is just about Penny’s bedtime, I thought that if we put Penny in her PJs that maybe she’d fall asleep in the car and sleep through dinner. Well, I was half-right — she fell right asleep in her carseat, but woke up as soon as we got inside the restaurant and was simply not interested in going back to sleep. Womp womp.

I think the days of us being able to dine out with her snoozing peacefully away are officially behind us. She just finds everything far too interesting now. Oh well, soon enough she’ll be able to sit in her own high chair and participate in meals with us when we dine out!

And speaking of dining… Penny’s been really enjoying eating oatmeal (we’re using the Happy Baby Organic Baby Oatmeal), so after four days of her demolishing each bowl of that, we’ve moved on to trying out sweet potatoes!

I boiled two sweet potatoes and processed them with about half a cup of the water they were cooked in, then divvied up the puree into 2 oz portions. (The containers are from Babymoov, if you’re curious.)

Penny loved it, of course! She took down a whole container with gusto — my good little eater! Of course, the fact that she loves solids so much isn’t something I could just celebrate outright. Nope, I just had to get anxiety about how this is going to affect us in terms of nursing and my milk supply. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve had a ton of work to get done this week, so I’ve spent less time in the house (sadly, even if someone else is taking care of her, I’m much more productive when I’m not around Penny ::sob::) which means, of course, I’ve spent less time breastfeeding.

Plus, during the times when I have been able to nurse her over the past few days, she’s been much, much fussier than normal. And pair that with the fact that yesterday I had a pumping session where I produced less than 1 oz of breastmilk total (I had typically been producing 2 – 4 oz per breast previously), and I found myself in a bit of a tailspin:

Am I not producing enough anymore? Is it not coming out fast enough? Have I not been pumping often enough? Is she still hungry? You hear about babies who lose interest in breastfeeding once they start solids — is that what’s happening? Does she prefer bottles to nursing now? Am I going to have to start power pumping? Exclusively pumping? Should we start supplementing with formula?

Aaaaand so on, and so forth. There’s just always something, y’know? No matter how smooth a breastfeeding journey you’ve had thus far, how easy a baby you’ve got, or how just, well, good becoming a mom has been (all of which I know I’m already insanely lucky to be able to say about myself), anxiety and fear always finds a way to creep in.

But I’m trying to take a step back and remind myself that one or two days does not a pattern make, and that she’s going through another developmental leap, and that since I haven’t had any issues up to this point, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions… but that doesn’t mean it’s not tough to keep things in perspective sometimes. I really am trying, though! Continuing to force myself to focus on gratitude and all the positive things I have going on in my life definitely helps when I start to spin out like this — because I really do have a lot of good going on!

And speaking of good things, I am excited to announce that our new part-time nanny started! She’s great, and we’re thrilled to have found someone that we feel comfortable taking care of our Lucky Penny. And Penny took to her right away, too, which really made everything even more reassuring.

Our nanny actually has an 11-month old daughter who she’ll be bringing with her to our house (so it’s kind of like a nannyshare, in a way), and I know it sounds so cheesy but I’m really excited for Penny to have a li’l baby friend to watch, emulate, and hopefully play with very soon.

Double the cuteness, double the fun!

I hope everyone has a relaxing and/or productive weekend, depending on what your goals are, hehe. Mine will be spent pumping (lol sigh), cleaning, snuggling with a certain baby, and helping out my bro on a music video shoot! And hopefully sleeping too…

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7 Comments

It’s not cheesy at all to want to have Penny to have a friend! There is a little girl in daycare with A who is 4 months older and they are so sweet together! And I really think that it has helped A with certain milestones like sitting, crawling, standing and hopefully walking soon! I’m so happy it’s working out!

Oo, we’ve been thinking about moving from rice cereal to other solids so I really appreciate the detailed instructions on how to prep the sweet potatoes. Keep them coming! Are you continuing to serve oatmeal or just keep going through everything?

And yea, my supply has dropped too now that I’m at work. I think it’s just a fact of life…

We’re continuing to do oatmeal occasionally as well — I figure it’ll be a really good vehicle for trying certain things like peanut butter, mashing up some bananas into the oatmeal, etc. Plus I like that we can mix it with my breastmilk! I figure once she gets to the point of eating solids more regularly, it’ll probably be like, oatmeal once a day + veggie or fruit or whatever once a day as well.

It might be! This might be TMI and sorry if it is, lol, but sooooo I can’t actually tell when my period is on or not because when I got my IUD a couple months ago (Mirena), it triggered my period coming back (::sob::) and I haven’t really stopped bleeding/spotting since.

So I *think* my period has come back at least once since that initial one, but it’s really hard to tell because it kinda comes and goes…. My doctor says this is all normal and to give it “3 – 6 months” before considering removing the IUD tho. We’ll see how long I can take it ahahahaha…. cry.
-_-

It’s a little lower than it was but frequent nursing when I can + trying to make sure to pump often when I am away from her is helping maintain things and keep my supply pretty solid (I think.) I’m also pumping before bed after she goes to sleep each night. She has been less fussy at the breast so hopefully that means she’s getting enough! It’s hard though… I often find myself going much longer than intended without pumping or nursing on workdays…

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Hi! I'm Gretchen: 29 years old, Whasian, and navigating life as a new mom to my daughter & old mom to my two mini schnauzers. I enjoy dyeing my hair, eating dumplings, playing the ukulele, and anything (everything!) Harry Potter-related. Thanks for stopping by!